


Entrance Exam

by Saesama



Series: Kick in the Head [5]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Gen, Power Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-01
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-27 20:26:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/666157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saesama/pseuds/Saesama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He expected attention for his actions. He had no idea just what kind he'd get.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Entrance Exam

Starscream shot up from the Academy, very aware of the mechs trailing him. The sudden interest in him was not without cause - he'd made quite the stir with his actions at the Showing. He had expected offers, queries, fanmail and all the usual speculation. 

The spies were a surprise, though. Slim little flight-capables hovering at the edges of his activities, shadowing his movements. He'd caught one of them in his semi-private lab, going through his personal effects, and while he hadn't killed the mech, he had come close. The mech had no insignia, and wouldn't say a word about who he worked for, even as Starscream pounded the slag out of him. Loyal, then. _Very_ loyal, and only a few mechs in Iacon could command that kind of loyalty, and Starscream was discomfited at being the target of any of them. 

His beating and subsequent dumping of the mech in a back alley had at least earned him a little respect from the minibots. They didn't trail him quite so close, and if they were still examining his things, they were far more subtle about it. 

The fact that they were following him out of the Academy, combined with news he had been given earlier that orn, discomfited him even further. The Master Keeper of the Cybertron-wide Network had approached him, quiet and reserved as he always was, to inform him of a series of increasingly disturbing trends. At first, the searches on Starscream's information had been the usual perusals of his resume and accolades. Then someone had dove into the not-as-public Academy records; uneasy, but still somewhat expected. Then they had gone even further beyond and into the Academy's private files on his experiments and psyche; too far by anyone's definition, and Red Alert's firewalls hadn't even been able to slow the intruder. They were good, and they wanted every bit of information on Starscream that existed.

Banking into a slow turn, Starscream wondered with bitter amusement if Red Alert had paid socially for coming to him personally, or if the Master Keeper's approach was a sign that his reputation was repairing itself. The Showing, while awe-inspiring to most of Cybertron, had made him rather unpopular at the Academy. There were rules of engagement between the various scientists in the great complex. While Sliderule and Calc had made their insult towards him sly and deep, his very public and humiliating retaliation was far too brash and open, and he had suffered for it. To be shunned, either from disgust or peer pressure, was worse than he had expected.

He was still a triloklik from his northern Iacon eyrie, and far above the normal traffic lanes, when his pursuers started to close in. One on each flank, a third above, probably two others in the shadows somewhere, and at the rate they were coming at him, they'd intercept him just before he reached his eyrie. Starscream didn't deviate from his path, outwardly giving the impression that he was lost in his thoughts, even as he calculated distances and speeds and armor strength and odds. And based on his last encounter with one of the spies, the only way they would provide a challenge would be if there were about fifteen more tracking him that he was unaware of.

The two closing in on him from the sides dropped all pretense of not stalking him, arrowing in with clawed hind legs reaching for his armor. He maintained his deception until the last tick, looping up and backwards sharp enough that his wingtip caught the mech coming in above him. The mech shrieked, spinning away out of control, and the other two had to perform some fast corrections to get back on Starscream's trail and not hit each other in the process. Starscream flipped belly-side down again, maintaining his steep upward climb away from his eyrie. Two more spies were waiting for him, hooking down to force him north again. Starscream twisted, flaring almost-legal thrusters to catch them in the backwash of heat and energy. One dropped, the other somehow caught up to him and landed on his back. Starscream yelled in indignation, barrel-rolling across the night sky to try and shake him loose. The mech held on tenaciously, and the other two joined him, sharp toe claws dug into the Seeker's back while their wing claws tore at his wings.

These were certainly not the same build of mech as the one he had caught before. His calculations of his odds changed a bit.

Starscream transformed in mid-air, the powerful pneumatics that directed his change forcing the mechs away from the shifting plates. He grabbed one of the mechs as he fell and threw it as hard as he could, but the other two chased him down. Starscream activated the thrusters that had shifted to his back, diving now into the steady stream of air traffic at the lower altitudes. Mechs cursed and dove away and narrowly avoided collisions as Starscream wove through the thickest areas of traffic, his pursuers joined by two more, then still more.

By the time Starscream cleared the last of the buildings and dove down the steep cliff face at the city's northern edge, the pursuing pack was up to ten. They kept close on his tail as he avoided the heavy support beams of the northern branch of the Main Road, weaving among the adamantium columns to try and force one to make a mistake. Only one did, catching his wingtip on a cable and tailspinning to the ground far below. The rest grew ever closer, and it was with the first tendrils of true alarm that Starscream banked away, curving back towards the city and the safety of the Academy. Disgraced or no, the Academy would not turn away from one of their own and leave him to the dangerous flock.

He noticed those closest to him scattering before he noticed the new arrival. The huge mech slammed into him from above, sharp claws latched onto his wings, actually forcing him down and Starscream had a moment to realize that he'd met his match for the first time in long vorns. The mech was above and behind him, out of reach past the broad expanse of his own shoulders, but Starscream had modified his thrusters in more than just output power. One of the ancillary thrusters over his hip joints rotated in place, the cabling stretching painfully, but it was worth the discomfort when he fired the thruster directly into the other mech's lower abdomen. The mech roared in pain and let him go, and Starscream managed to get just enough distance between them before they hit the ground.

Rough shards of slag ore scored Starscream's armor he hurriedly pulled himself out of his landing crater. He had precious seconds to get up and away before his foe, and-

And Lord High Protector Megatron was watching him with calm optics when he stood upright.

Starscream froze, stunned and mentally berating himself for being so. Of all of the mechs on Cybertron, there were a select few that he never would have suspected of stalking him like this, and the Lord High Protector was second on that list only to the Prime. He slowly straightened, not quite able to bring himself to revert to his fully bipedal mode, but he did force his thrusters to not flare like he was about to take off. The demented flock that had chased him this far was ringed around them, identical dark blue builds almost lost against the deep twilight.

"Starscream," Megatron said, clawed toes clicking against the ground as he strode away from his own landing spot. "Currently aligned with the Academy. A direct subordinate of Sine Logitron, former Lord High Protector and head of explorations. Also a known peer of Skyfire, in aeronautics, also known to have worked with Sine Perceptor, head of nanophysics."

The High Protector was circling him in slow, measured steps. Starscream turned to continue facing Megatron, and abruptly had to duck as great claws swiped at his head. He dodged backwards, inwardly cursing the unstable shale beneath his feet. Megatron didn't pursue the attack, his head tilted thoughtfully at the Seeker. "A known genius," he continued, circling again. "Helped to discover the Lafemol system, the Phyrexian system, and the Andralh system. Helped develop several improvements to the Seeker build."

Another brief attack, cruel swipes at his optics and face. Starscream dodged them, his processor whirling. What was the point of all of this? As good a warrior as he was, Starscream knew that Megatron outclassed him by some distance. And even if he did fight back, or if he tried to escape, he had no doubts that the murderous blue pack around him would be on him in seconds.

Megatron paused in his slow circuit, his optics hard and cold. "Arrested several times for unauthorized experiments," he growled, and Starscream's energon ran cold. "Fined several more times for being in possession of illegal build modifications and military-grade weaponry. Recently earned the disapproval of the Academy heads for the debacle at the Showing." Megatron made a face, mildly disgusted. "Though with the way you keep dancing away, instead of fighting back, I am beginning to suspect that the Showing was staged."

Though it was probably suicidal, Starscream's pride flared. "I wouldn't stoop so low to stage a battle I could easily win," he hissed angrily. "Do you really expect me to attack the Lord High Protector? Your little minions would be on me in a second, and whatever was left of me would be imprisoned for vorns."

Megatron looked at him for a long moment, utterly unreadable. Starscream stared back defiantly, breaking eye contact when the flock abruptly took off, a glittering dark cloud that whirled away towards the city. Starscream looked back at Megatron with a frown that quickly morphed into surprise. The intricate glyphs of his position that covered Megatron's body were gone, hidden beneath camouflage mesh. "I see no Lord High Protector here," Megatron said softly.

Starscream took a moment, possibilities and motivations and brutal calculations singing in his processor. "What do you _want_?" he asked finally, somewhat desperately; he was sick of not knowing what was going on, of not knowing why he was out in the middle of a Primus-forsaken slag field in the middle of the night with the most powerful mech on Cybertron baiting him.

Megatron smiled, faint and unmistakable. "I'd like to offer you a job," he said casually. And then he was lunging forward, all claws splayed.

No teasing blows now; Megatron came at him in deadly earnest, clearly hoping to catch him off-guard. And he almost succeeded, but Starscream's survival instincts had always been rather high-strung for a scientist. He twisted, dropped to the ground under Megatron's outstretched arms, and planted both feet firmly in the larger mech's abdomen, using Megatron's momentum to flip him backwards. Megatron caught himself on his hands, stopping his tumble with strength alone, and brought his feet back down directly at Starscream. Starscream rolled aside, earning a superficial but painful scrape on his arm as he did so, and scrambled back to his feet. "I _have_ a job,” he pointed out. “Second-in-command to a Sine is nothing to drop at a whim, not even _your_ whim.”

“I spoke to Logitron about you,” Megatron said, his tone in no way betraying the fact that he was trying to remove Starscreams limbs. They collided with a responding crash, each grappling for purchase on the other’s armor, and though Megatron was stronger, Starscream was hard at work analyzing weak points and leverage, barely managing to hold his own. “That fool has no idea what an asset he has in you.”

Megatron’s grip shifted, and Starscream found himself hauled around by his arm and thrown, hard. He caught himself in mid-air, thrusters screaming and wings wrenching themselves around to allow him to arch upwards instead, missing a jagged outcropping by a mere tick. Megatron followed closely, but it was somewhat known that the Lord High Protector disdained from aerial combat, preferring to remain ground-bound and rip apart his enemies with his own hands. Though Megatron was skilled in more or less _every_ form of combat, even such a small advantage was still an advantage, and Starscream intended to use it as much as possible. 

He made a quick loop, coming back up underneath Megatron to hook his own claws into relatively unprotected underbelly plates. Megatron let out a snarl and barrel-rolled, yanking out of Starscream’s grip in a manner that _had_ to be painful. Starscream gave chase, only to barrel-roll himself as a blue-white blast of energy narrowly missed his right side. Slag. If Megatron was using that fusion cannon of his, Starscream was in very real danger of permanent deactivation. 

Avoiding another blast, he flipped out the oddly-shaped cannon in his right arm and took careful aim. He had not had a chance to test the null-ray on anything other than target drones, and the scientist part of him danced in glee at the chance to finally do so. The rest of him wondered how long he'd be imprisoned for using an illegal disrupting device in the first place, let alone on the Lord High Protector. Smelt it. If he was going to die during Megatron's bizarre excuse of a job interview, he very well was going to go down blazing every weapon he had at his disposal.

The ray struck Megatron, who let out a yell that seemed equal parts shock and fury. The great silver shape quickly turned into an ungraceful rock, corkscrewing back to the ground below, out of control. Megatron hit the rough ground, dirt and metal shards exploding out around in him an obscuring cloud, and Starscream was hard-pressed to not launch a volley of highly-explosive rounds after him. Loathe as he was to ever hold back in battle, outright killing the Lord High Protector probably wasn't a smart decision.

Starscream landed in time to observe Megatron pull himself out of his new landing spot. The fact that Megatron was moving at all was a shock, and Starscream wondered if his new weapon had only briefly stunned him. No, not quite. Megatron's arm hung useless and limp at his side, only half-transformed and crackling with the disruptor's energy. Separated systems, he realized; each limb was probably carefully insulated from the torso, to prevent weapons like his null-ray from taking down the whole mech.

Megatron curiously prodded his own arm, looking absurdly like a wide-opticked sparkling for a tick, before he threw back his head and laughed. "You see?" he asked, still laughing. "And Logitron wants to send you scouting dead planets, because he thinks your temper and pride are a liability. The fool does not realize what he has!"

Alarm flared and was quickly shoved aside. Megatron was lying, he _had_ to be lying, there was no way Logitron would send his second to explore lonely, dead planets. Except such an assignment was well within Logitron's ways; dead planets cooled heated processors. He'd seen others sent on such excursions, and Logitron had always been overly fair. And Megatron was known to be an honorable mech. Unconventional and bizarre, but honorable.

"And I suppose you think you can offer me better?" he snapped, more to distract himself than anything. It was a bluff, he knew; _anything_ would be better than the creeping horror of jaunting between dead planets and taking mineral samples.

Megatron looked disinclined to attack him again, but Starscream refused to be fooled by casualness, and he kept his guard up. "I am in need of an Air Commander," Megatron said, gesturing expressively with his working hand. "I have not assigned one before now, partially because I had no need in the past, but more, I have not seen someone worthy of that post. At least, not until the Showing."

Air Commander? Primus! "Why would you pick me?" Starscream demanded, pushing forward when all he wanted to do was reel a bit. He could over-analyze this encounter later. "I am a scientist, not a combatant." A hated truth, but a necessary one; the ridiculously traditional Academy frowned on it's more intelligent scientists taking on robust builds. The only reason Starscream could even get away with the build of a Seeker was due to the rugged nature of exploratory work, and he was pushing the bounds of socially acceptable with his various self-modifications.

"Do you lie to fool others, or only yourself?" Megatron all but purred, closing the distance between them. "As Air Commander, you would have your own laboratory, your own assistants. You would be free to develop and openly test whatever modifications or weapons-" A brief stroke of one finger down the null-ray still protruding from Starscream's arm and when had he let Megatron get so close? "Without fear of arrest or fines. You could keep your Academy contacts, while gaining so many more through the entirety of Cybertron's military. You would be out from under the Academy's pede, free of their social restrictions, commander of my aerial forces, beholden to no mech, and second only to _me_."

Deadly claws were gentle under his chin, lifting his head to meet smoldering optics. No wonder so many followed the Lord High Protector without a thought; the mech practically radiated authority and confidence, and an oddly attractive power that came not from his build or social status. It didn't help that his offer was almost as intoxicating on it's own- Air Commander! The entirety of Cybertron's powerful fliers under his direct command. No more working on his weaponry in pained secret, no more chafing under the Academy's outdated traditions. It was an opportunity mechs would give up their limbs for - which was exactly why Starscream pasted on an overly polite, blatantly false smile. "I am afraid I cannot accept your offer as it stands," he said pleasantly. "Perhaps if you were to attempt to acquire my services through the official channels at the Academy, I could accept in good faith."

For just the briefest moment, an expression of balked fury crossed Megatron's face. Starscream grinned to himself. Megatron had clearly expected to win him over by the end of this meeting. Ha. If Megatron wanted him that badly, he'd have to do a little more than sweet-talk him after trying to kill him. Let him jump through the Academy's hoops for a while, and Starscream would accept happily. Megatron's expression went decidedly flat. "You doubt my intentions?" he asked softly.

Primus, yes, there was power there, and it had _nothing_ to do with his role as Lord High Protector. Starscream felt a not-unpleasant chill dance along his circuits and his smile turned slightly more genuine. "You spied on me, attacked me, and now you just expect me to trust you?" he countered.

Megatron stared at him in heavy silence. Starscream stared right back, refusing to be intimidated, and after a moment, a strange smile spread across Megatron's face plates. "Very well," he said, abruptly formal, except for that odd smile. "I shall make my inquiries at the Academy first thing tomorrow. I thank you for your time." And just like that, he was gone, winging back to the city.

Starscream took his time heading back to his eyrie, musing over the events of the night. Megatron would certainly be interesting to serve under.


End file.
